Why is Trump breaking election vows?

[Shaderas]

3) he can't accept that he lost the popular vote. He is quite literally wasting money and time on a fool errand because his pride was hurt.

I'm not entirely sure of the above. While he is an egotist, he may have something else in mind. Possibly a new option:

4) He's trying to deflect attention from other areas, by keeping us occupied on this.


Personally, I'm interested in seeing his tax returns... not me personally, but to have them audited by a government official (not IRS, they are just concerned with taxes, someone that would be more concerned with ethics), to make sure he doesn't have any conflicts of interest being President. Also, a committee to make sure he's properly divested himself of things that could be considered a conflict of interest, or that those interests have been dealt with appropriately (something such as placed in a blind trust).

[Garnier Fructis]

I'm not entirely sure of the above. While he is an egotist, he may have something else in mind. Possibly a new option:

4) He's trying to deflect attention from other areas, by keeping us occupied on this.

You might be right, but I'm inclined to believe that this is just a fortunate (for him) side effect.

[Breccia]

Your "loud annoying buzzer" comments really dissuade anyone from wanting to have an intelligent conversation with you.

That's fine. I was talking with you, so having an intelligent conversation wasn't going to happen anyhow.

Maybe if you had just said "Trump is going a lot of the stuff he promised" I wouldn't have to hit the buzzer on you over and over? But no. No. You went with "literally everything" and then tried to defend it. That was a statement you made. And you were wrong.

And just because I know you hate it

*LOUD ANNOYING BUZZER*

P.S. Saying "but Obama!" is deflection. You are no less wrong, when you use such terms as "literally everything" incorrectly, than you would have been if Obama had strangled a baby seal on the UN steps. Sorry, you lied, I called you on it. Obama is not the issue. Your willful ignorance is.

[Stommped]

That's fine. I was talking with you, so having an intelligent conversation wasn't going to happen anyhow.

Maybe if you had just said "Trump is going a lot of the stuff he promised" I wouldn't have to hit the buzzer on you over and over? But no. No. You went with "literally everything" and then tried to defend it. That was a statement you made. And you were wrong.

And just because I know you hate it

*LOUD ANNOYING BUZZER*

P.S. Saying "but Obama!" is deflection. You are no less wrong, when you use such terms as "literally everything" incorrectly, than you would have been if Obama had strangled a baby seal on the UN steps. Sorry, you lied, I called you on it. Obama is not the issue. Your willful ignorance is.

If you actual read what I said instead of just those two words you would see I am not wrong. I said literally everything he has done thusfar, never once did I say "literally everything he has promised has been done." Just more of you twisting my words into bullshit lies in attempt to make me look bad.

President Trump's approval rating is at 59% based on the latest Rasumussen polls from this week, and before you predictably scream bias, note that the last approval poll for Obama released by Rasmussen had him at 62%. Gallup has him at 46%, but either way it's not a stretch to say the majority (or close to the majority) of Americans are satisfied with the President's first 7 days, unless you have data that supports otherwise.

Don't you think that number would be significantly lower if he were "breaking election vows" like OP claims? Or are you saying the majority of Americans are just that dumb and only opinions that matter are celebrities and internet posters who agree with you? I can't wait for when you are still praising Obama for record highs in the stock market 3 years from now.

[Breccia]

If you actual read what I said instead of just those two words you would see I am not wrong. I said literally everything he has done thusfar, never once did I say "literally everything he has promised has been done."

To be fair, this is pretty close.

Literally everything he has done and said so far has been consistent with what he's said prior to winning the election. Yeah we're the delusional ones all right... The wall hasn't been constructed after 7 days in office, break out the pitchforks

Problem is, you're still wrong.

Trump: "On Day One, I will do these 18 things. Here is my signature on my Contract with America."
Most don't happen on Day One. Most haven't happened yet.
That is not consistent with what he said prior to the election.

Trump: "I will totally accept the results of the election if I win."
Trump wins.
Trump challenges the results of the election.
This is not consistent with what he said prior to the election.

Trump: "Mexico will pay for the wall."
Trump throws out 20% tax that Americans will pay.
That is not consistent with what he said prior to the election.

Trump says nothing about gagging government agencies from talking to the public or press.
Trump wins. He immediately gags government agencies.
This is not consistent with what he said prior to the election.

Hey @Kujako, want to get in on this?

For example, he promised to help working class families, yet signed an executive order stopping the FHA home loan fees going back to the pre-housing crash level.

This, combined with the taxes he's threatening, are not consistent with what he said prior to the election.

Oh, here's one more because I can:
Trump: "I will bring back coal!"
Signs executive orders to further two major pipelines for energy sources that are strong competitors of coal.
This is not consistent with bla bla bla.

So again, when you say "Literally everything he has done and said so far has been consistent with what he's said prior to winning the election" you are still wrong, and to quote another forum poster, delusional.

Maybe next time you'll avoid using such bluster as "literally" or "everything" when you can't back that up. Just say Trump's doing a good job working towards his goals. I can't fight that. Oh, and I can't use "two words" out of context when it was the two words you led with, signifying they were important. Also, I can't use "two words" against you if you think about what you mean and what you actually want to say, before hitting enter. Instead, I have to smack a mod up and down, up and down the schoolyard with the Dumbass Stick because they refuse to admit they said something foolish and factually untrue.

[Nadiru]

*LOUD ANNOYING BUZZER*

Nope. Trump said Mexico will pay for the wall. A 20% tax on imports is nowhere close to that happening. The fact that he even suggested it is proof enough that his through process is no longer Mexico required to pay for the wall.

Mexican net exports to the United States total ~295,000,000,000 per year. Da Wall costs 12,000,000,000 to 15,000,000,000. 20% of 295,000,000,000 is 59,000,000,000.

[Breccia]

President Trump's approval rating is at 59% based on the latest Rasumussen polls from this week, and before you predictably scream bias, note that the last approval poll for Obama released by Rasmussen had him at 62%. Gallup has him at 46%, but either way it's not a stretch to say the majority (or close to the majority) of Americans are satisfied with the President's first 7 days, unless you have data that supports otherwise.

I don't have to provide the evidence. You did.

Here is the Gallup poll you mentioned. More disapprove than approve. So yes, it is a stretch to say the majority approves, even by your own evidence.

Also, since you asked, Quinnicpiac 36%.

And I'll end with a quote from 538:

"Now, what you do need to be aware of is that Rasmussen’s opinion is one among many. They might turn out to be right — but so might all of the other pollsters who have a different opinion about the electorate. If you’re running a news organization and you tend to cite Rasmussen’s polls disproportionately, it probably means that you are biased — it does not necessarily mean that Rasmussen is biased."

Read that page. There are some tough words about Ransmussen's methodology.

Oh, the Washington Post, too.

And here's Business Insider saying Trump's results are the lowest in history.

Fortune!

Reuters! Twice!

And even your precious Ransmussen has him losing 4% since yesterday.

Yes, I do have data that supports otherwise. Half of it's yours.

[Glorious Leader]

I'm not entirely sure of the above. While he is an egotist, he may have something else in mind. Possibly a new option:

4) He's trying to deflect attention from other areas, by keeping us occupied on this.


Personally, I'm interested in seeing his tax returns... not me personally, but to have them audited by a government official (not IRS, they are just concerned with taxes, someone that would be more concerned with ethics), to make sure he doesn't have any conflicts of interest being President. Also, a committee to make sure he's properly divested himself of things that could be considered a conflict of interest, or that those interests have been dealt with appropriately (something such as placed in a blind trust).

I mean i guess thats the overall question. How much of trump is an act and how much is genuine? And how do you seperate whats the strategy and whats bluster?

[Glorious Leader]

Their was some talk about trump making cabinet members sign agreements to the effect that they also wouldnt be lobbyists. My understanding is that this has failed to come to fruition.

[Schattenlied]

every president always breaks their election vows, why are people still surprised by this?

[Glorious Leader]

Holy shit wut mate. You obviously dont live in the US. XD

I take his meaning to be theirs an obvious difference between a politician who makes a promise he would like to fulfil but doesnt and a politician who just throws sphagetti at a wall and hopes it sticks. Trump is the later.

[Stommped]

I don't have to provide the evidence. You did.

Here is the Gallup poll you mentioned. More disapprove than approve. So yes, it is a stretch to say the majority approves, even by your own evidence.

Also, since you asked, Quinnicpiac 36%.

And I'll end with a quote from 538:

"Now, what you do need to be aware of is that Rasmussen’s opinion is one among many. They might turn out to be right — but so might all of the other pollsters who have a different opinion about the electorate. If you’re running a news organization and you tend to cite Rasmussen’s polls disproportionately, it probably means that you are biased — it does not necessarily mean that Rasmussen is biased."

Read that page. There are some tough words about Ransmussen's methodology.

Oh, the Washington Post, too.

And here's Business Insider saying Trump's results are the lowest in history.

Fortune!

Reuters! Twice!

And even your precious Ransmussen has him losing 4% since yesterday.

Yes, I do have data that supports otherwise. Half of it's yours.

Yes, lets just completely ignore the fact that I said "majority (or close to majority)". The majority being Rasmussen polling, who are so blatantly biased that they had Obama at higher final approval rating than ANY other pollster, or close to majority, the Gallup poll. Or is 3 percentage points not close in your mind? Keep in mind the margin of error is 3 points.

Again if he was breaking election vows his approval rating would not be anywhere near the 40s, let alone 50s.

[Shaderas]

What people like you dont get is thats not why we voted for him. Defiance is. I for one (as well as most people I know), personally, dont care if he sits there and plays with legos for 4 years, he is very, very....very dumb after all. What hes doing to the highly dangerous liberal establishment (tearing them apart and dividing them) is why he was voted for. Hes our brick through the window, hes our gas which we will use to burn it all to the ground. Trump is our tool, not our savior. Hes a trained chimp. What you liberals never understood is we dont want to better YOUR society. We want to burn it to the ground, salt the earth, and get your cancer out of power. Hes our instrument. Step one.

He's tearing up the Republicans too. In every major election before this one I have voted Republican. I was basically begging for Romney to come back and would have voted for him. Last year, for the first time in my life, I voted for an independent, because I didn't think Trump would make a good leader of the free world.

[Breccia]

Keep in mind the margin of error is 3 points. .

Well that sounds like someone who doesn't know how the margin of error works. See also: bell curve.

Trump has the lowest approval of any entering President since Gallup began. It's historic. Your claim "but it would be lower if he was breaking vows" is actually true. He is breaking vows, and it is lower. Your argument is counterproductive.

[Breccia]

Another "vow" Trump is likely to break: making the Keystone pipeline with US steel. Simply put, the US steel mills don't make enough of the steel strong enough to meet the pipe requirements. Indian, Italian and Russian companies in the US do. Plus, a fair amount of the pipe has already been purchased, and this could be a violation of World Trade Organization rules.

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-us...-idUSKBN15B2G5

American steel unlikely to get Keystone boost despite Trump order

When U.S. President Donald Trump signed orders to revive two controversial energy pipeline projects this week, he pledged to require new pipelines to use American-made steel, a gesture to workers in the hard-hit industry who helped propel him to power.

But U.S. steelmakers will receive negligible benefit from the multi-billion dollar Keystone XL project, one of the two projects Trump ordered to proceed, because they have limited ability to meet the stringent materials requirements for the TransCanada line.

Economists said Trump's order has many loopholes to enforcement and could violate international trade law.

Meanwhile, in the quiet prairie town of Gascoyne, North Dakota, deer wander among gleaming stacks of steel tubing intended for the Keystone pipeline. The company bought the material years ago when the U.S. debate was raging over whether the project should go ahead.

TransCanada tried for more than five years to build the 1,179-mile (1,897 km) pipeline, until then-President Barack Obama rejected it in 2015.

Since the materials were already purchased for Keystone, Trump's move to revive the project should not result in new large steel orders.

The profits for manufacturing that steel were booked by companies with corporate headquarters in Russia, India and Italy. Those companies own the steel mills in the United States that made about half of the pipeline for the $8 billion project.

Much of that steel has sat exposed to the elements in several giant stockyards along the pipeline's route for more than two years. Analysts said some of it will need to be replaced.

But that is unlikely to come from U.S. producers, such as U.S. Steel, AK Steel or Steel Dynamics, analysts and traders said, because of the specialized steel required for the big-ticket project.

Trump's directive on using U.S.-made steel is likely also inconsistent with long-standing World Trade Organization rules that require imported products to be given the same treatment as domestically produced goods.

The directive could well become the target of a challenge under WTO rules.

Trump's order also runs counter to the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), a pact that he said he wants to renegotiate but one that nevertheless remains in effect.

TransCanada resubmitted its application Keystone project on Thursday, two days after Trump signed the orders.

The line is designed to link existing pipeline networks in Canada and the United States to bring crude from Alberta and North Dakota to refineries in Illinois en route to the Gulf of Mexico.

Around Gascoyne where the tubing has sat idle in a TransCanada yard, there is little sign among residents of the fierce opposition that stopped Keystone and led to the delay of the other controversial pipeline that Trump pushed forward on Tuesday - the Dakota Access Pipeline.

But townspeople were skeptical of Trump's made-in-America order.

"It's a nice gesture, but you can't renegotiate when the pipe's been bought already," said Dan Peterson, 47, a contractor from nearby Bowman, North Dakota, who supports the project.

About half of the pipe was forged in Arkansas, at a plant owned by India's Welspun. About a quarter came from a Russian-owned plant in the Canadian province of Saskatchewan, and the rest came from Italy and India.

Alberta-based TransCanada expects to use roughly 821,000 tons of pipe in Canada and 660,000 tons in the United States for the project. TransCanada representatives did not return a request for comment.

EDIT: For perspective, 660k tons is about 10% of the entire US steel production for a month. Not that anyone would dream of making the pipeline in a month, of course.

Trump's order pertains only to sections of pipelines built in the United States, and it said the directive should be followed to the "maximum extent" possible, which gives the administration wiggle room.

Steel manufacturers and analysts said that TransCanada's stringent requirements for the pipeline, including thickness and pressure requirements, already keeps most U.S.-based steelmakers out, given current forging and manufacturing processes.

That includes Nucor and Steel Dynamics, which can make pipeline that is thick enough but may not meet all the pressure parameters. For the main trunk line, experts say that Keystone requires welded line pipe between 36 inches to 42 inches (91 to 107 cm) in diameter.

Foreign-owned steelmakers with U.S. operations, such as India's Welspun and JSW as well as Russia's Evraz, are best able to produce the pipe.

To be sure, U.S. steelmakers have a large part of their business in producing pipe and tube for the oil and gas industry. But, analysts said that to meet Keystone's requirements, they will need to reinvest and retrofit their plants to reorient production. It's not clear if other pipeline projects would have the same standards as Keystone.

"There are people who make (this type of) steel pipe in the U.S., but they're mostly Indian and Russian" companies, said Charles Bradford, an analyst at New York-based Bradford Research.

[Cthulhu 2020]

Politicians lie. More news at 11.

"We're going to elect this guy because he's going to do all of this cool stuff that Hillary would never do for us, the common man!"

Trump fucks over common man, keeps no campaign promises, is corrupt as fuck.

"WELL EVERY POLITICIAN LIES AND IS CORRUPT, MORE NEWS AT 11"

[Mormolyce]

Gallup has him at 46%, but either way it's not a stretch to say the majority (or close to the majority) of Americans are satisfied with the President's first 7 days, unless you have data that supports otherwise.

You are terrible at spin.

Trump is the first elected U.S. president to start out with a job approval rating below 50% in the history of Gallup surveys, which date back to Dwight D. Eisenhower in 1953. Just 45% of respondents said they approve of the job Trump is doing, while 45% disapprove, according to a Gallup poll.

http://fortune.com/2017/01/24/donald...roval-ratings/

[Cthulhu 2020]

Mexican net exports to the United States total ~295,000,000,000 per year. Da Wall costs 12,000,000,000 to 15,000,000,000. 20% of 295,000,000,000 is 59,000,000,000.

I mean... people do realize that a humongous amount of our produce comes from Mexico.

It's hilarious that Republicans are for an insanely over the top tax to help fund a wall that wouldn't protect them from a threat that they imagined even if it was real.